Class and Status in TV drama

There are many different stereotypes for the area of class and status and many of these can lead to audiences judging characters or living people through other types of representations. Generally people of lower class are seen to be lacking intelligence and to not have much disposable income. They are generally seen to wear stereotypical cheap clothing, usually tracksuits or branded clothing that is specifically associated with lower class people. Upper class people are seeing to be clever and well spoken, living in areas that are upper class such as stately homes or property in the countryside. They are usually seen to be wearing smart clothing that is formal and modest, not to have tattoos or piercings of any type. Status is very similar in the way that it is perceived stereotypically as class only people with more status are generally seen as people to be fearful of because they have greater amount of power or control.

 

Regarding the four areas of textual analysis there are again many ways of representing class and status. Camera angles are usually shown to make a character with higher class and status to be higher or above people with lower class and status to show control. Editing can be used to make people with more status look more elegant or soft looking, using camera filters lighting can appear to make a character seem more subtle and blur out blemishes or fault in an upper class characters appearance. Mise en scene is very common to show how status and class is determined within TV dramas. Upper class people are usually shown to be wearing costumes that are very modest and look expensive using materials that look luxurious or jewellery. Sound is also used to create an effect with the idea of class and status; lower class people can be seen to talk under their breaths or change their volume a lot whereas upper class people are generally seen to be well spoken and keep to a stable volume of talking. There are also background noises that would show an area that a character may be living such as noisy cars and music or church bells and heeled shoes that could give the audience an idea of the class of the environment the character is in.

When linking this representation of class and status to age there are many different ideas that can be seen for example an older person is generally seen as having higher class as they dress fairly modestly and because of the era’s they are brought up in they can be shown to be well spoken and polite. However this can be shown negatively as older people in TV dramas can also be shown to be snooty or look down on other people. Younger people in TV dramas are generally seen as middle class with a low status but sometimes they can be shown to be higher class and in this case they are usually seen to own lots of expensive gadgets and be people that are working a lot in high paid jobs in cities wearing expensive looking clothing.

Concerning gender and class and status it is stereotypically men that are shown ot have more status in TV dramas they are usually seen as business men that own lots of shares or run various companies, however this is not to say that there are no women that have power as well.

Usually regarding ethnicity white people are seen to have more social status in TV dramas over other ethnicities; they are usually seen to have more power however this could be because they are generally the biggest population of actors/actresses in UK TV dramas.

 

Sexuality hasn’t got much connection with class and status as it is not usually specified in TV dramas and there is not usually a clear indication of the characters sexuality. However generally dominating this area of representation are heterosexual people although this would a lot of the time be a generalised guess as it isn’t specified.

It is not common to see a TV character that has a lot of class and status that is severely disabled this could be because it is generally seen that to have status and class you have to have a substation amount of money and this money has to be earnt; for someone who is disabled this could be very hard. Some characters gain status through their ability as they can use power and aggression to gain status from people in their environment even though it is not for positive reasons.

Lots of different regions have some type of lower and higher class people living within them. Cities such as London are a large example as there are many people seen to be living in these areas with very little money who are seen to be lower class because of their dialect and other characteristics they may have and then there is the idea of high paid business men that own large shares and are see to have a lot of authority over people like Alan Sugar. In the countryside you get the idea that there are many people who live in remote places such as on farms working a lot but never being widely known and earning very little money to receive education etc and then there is the idea that there could be people living in large stately homes, eating fine food and having titles such as lady or lord of the manor.

 

This is a picture of the characters and setting in downton abbey. Its characters are shown to be upper class as they are well spoken, polite, intelligent and rich. they are also seen to have a lot of status because of this wealth and because many of them are titles lady or lord giving the idea to the audience that they have a lot of authority in their environment. The setting of the drama is typical of the idea of upper class countryside living as they live in a very large stately home with lots of land and antique styled architecture. This also links to the idea of older people generally having more class and a higher level of status as many of the characters that have lots of status in the programme are seen to be older than middle age. they where smart clothing that is periodic and gives a sense of class. The suits are very formal usually dark colours with lots of tailoring and layers. The female characters wear light colours never showing much skin and wearing posh hats and accessories that look expensive for instance brooches and necklaces.


This is a family in waterloo road that are represented as being lower class and status. The children rarely go to school, they are seen to cause trouble and use lots of slang phrases in their speech which gives the impression that they are uneducated. Their clothing is typical of a lower class family, they wear cheap looking clothing including tracksuits and sports brands and lots of their clothing is tattered and marked to show that they cannot afford replacements. The mother is single and has lots of children even though she, herself, is fairly young.